I suppose in our contemporary lives, our cumulative e-mails might constitute a kind of diary: that informal, moment-by-moment description of life as it goes by. . As I think of those notes now - what I wrote, what I said - it seems to me they danced across the surface just as my grandmother's diaries did - Anais Nin she wasn't, and I wasn't, either. Who is? Not even Anais Nin.
Sue MillerI suppose in our contemporary lives, our cumulative e-mails might constitute a kind of diary: that informal, moment-by-moment description of life as it goes by. . As I think of those notes now - what I wrote, what I said - it seems to me they danced across the surface just as my grandmother's diaries did - Anais Nin she wasn't, and I wasn't, either. Who is? Not even Anais Nin.
Sue MillerBut perhaps this is all to the good. Perhaps itโs best to live with the possibility that around any corner, at any time, may come the person who reminds you of your own capacity to surprise yourself, to put at risk everything thatโs dear to you. Who reminds you of the distances we have to bridge to begin to know anything about one another. Who reminds you that what seems to beโeven about yourselfโmay not be. That like him, you need to be forgiven.
Sue MillerKids need to see that Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to us. And they need to know it can happen to them.
Sue MillerAnd I was remembering that time in our lives together, the time of those ritual walks. I was remembering the way it feels at just that moment when you begin to turn, when youโre poised exactly between the things in life you want to do and those you need to do, and it seems for a few blessed seconds that they are all going to be the same.
Sue MillerIt seems we need someone to know us as we are - with all we have done - and forgive us. We need to tell. We need to be whole in someone's sight: Know this about me, and yet love me. Please.
Sue MillerAnd what if weโd been utterly open? Made jokes about the first wife? What if weโd been that kind of family? Well, I would have been different, surely. But not because I knew the secret. For it wasnโt the secretโthe secret that wasnโt a secret anywayโthat led to the austerity in our lives. It was the austerity that led to the secret. And what I had been marked by, probably most of all, was the austerity. It had made secrets in my life too. Or silences, anyway, that became secrets. That became lies.
Sue Miller